Page 15

“So very kind,” Freda twittered and retreated to his sister’s side.

“Your bride awaits,” Ankatel said turning to him and gesturing toward the crowd gathered around the studded door of the porch.

“I do not see the priest,” Konrad commented. He was in no great hurry to move up to the front where all eyes would be trained on him.

“The hour approaches, and he must surely be due any moment now,” Ankatel responded, and without waiting for Konrad’s response, he headed determinedly for the crowd. “Make way!” he cried. “The groom’s party must come through.” The crowd hurriedly made way for them, and Konrad cleared his throat and plunged into the heart of them, his sister and cousin on his heels.

So distracted was he by the unexpected hubbub that he scarcely gave more than a passing glance to his heavily veiled bride. When the priest appeared in the doorway, he felt her pluck at his sleeve and realized she wanted his hand. With some surprise, he extended it and found it grasped at once. For some reason, he had imagined her fingers would be cold and would shrink from his touch, but her hand was warm and her grip firm.

That was not to be his greatest shock either, for with her other hand she drew back her veil and revealed not the pale visage he had been expecting but the radiant face of Ankatel’s youngest daughter. He would have dropped her hand if she had not hold of his so tightly. Turning toward him, she beamed at him, and Konrad just about managed to stop his jaw from dropping.

Why was she here? What had happened to the other? He turned his head to look at Ankatel, and the older man nodded and smiled as though for all the world this was in fact his intended. So distracted was he that for a moment he did not realize the priest had started to speak.

“I am willing,” he heard his bride return heartily, and he turned his head to find the priest regarding him expectantly.

“I – er – am also willing,” he responded awkwardly after a moment. After all, what else could he do? The priest trotted out a few more phrases, and once more his bride tugged on his hand until he extended it, still clasped in hers. The priest held up a green ribbon, and then after speaking a few words over it, he deftly wound it about their two wrists and bound them together.

“Your lives are now entwined together, and henceforth from this point you will be as one,” the priest intoned gravely.

“Thank you so much, Father Amos,” his bride said earnestly and then turned to Konrad, lowering her voice. “We shall have to turn about so that we can head back up the other way,” she advised, and Konrad dumbly allowed her to shepherd him about until they were facing in the opposite direction.

He felt wrong-footed by the scattered applause. Did people usually clap at weddings? Then there was a surge of people toward them, and Konrad found his shoulder clasped and his back patted. Gerold Ankatel embraced him, and he had little choice about the matter as he could hardly sidestep him without trampling his bride.

He noticed his sister standing aloof from the milling crowd, though his cousin was chattering excitedly to a matronly looking woman who was carrying a small infant. Before he could gather his wits, his bride was tugging resolutely on his hand once again and standing on her tiptoes to address him. “We need to move around to the west porch now,” she explained loudly so that he could hear her above the tumult.

“The west porch?” he repeated blankly.

“For Ursula’s ceremony to Sir Renlow,” she explained cheerfully.

Following her promptings, he made his way like a sleepwalker and found himself in the midst of the crowd this time as Sir Renlow was bound in turn to the whey-faced sister. Konrad half-expected Renlow to object to the bridal exchange, but the young knight showed no sign of surprise or discomfiture when the veil was drawn back to show the older sister stood at his side.

Knowing the strict code of chivalry Renlow adhered to, Konrad told himself he should not have been surprised by this, even though he was. He found himself glancing distractedly down at the woman he was bound to. What the fuck was her name? He had not troubled about their names, he acknowledged belatedly, and felt an uncomfortable prickling of something he had thought long gone.

As if aware of his regard, his bride’s face lifted, and she flashed her dimples at him. He was still recovering from this when a cheer went up, and he turned to find Renlow and his new wife were now making their way back through the crowd and holding their bound wrists aloft. Even the older sister was smiling for once. Doubtless she was relieved at her last-minute reprieve, he thought grimly. Had she balked at the eleventh hour and her sister agreed to trade places with her?

He glanced down uneasily again and found his wife cheering and waving like the rest. She squeezed his hand. “Where is your party?” she asked him, gazing about. He stared back at her blankly. “Your kinswomen,” she prompted. Konrad glanced around and saw Magnatrude still lurking on the edges, wearing her frozen look as Freda conversed freely with a minstrel carrying a lute.

“Over there,” he nodded in their direction.

“I would love an introduction,” she told him hopefully, and Konrad realized his manners were sadly lacking. He waved and caught Freda’s attention. Magnatrude appeared to be staring in horror at some capering jesters. He beckoned and Freda caught hold of his sister’s sleeve. Immediately, Magnatrude shrugged her off, clearly in a disagreeable and prickly mood.

He watched Freda go through the pantomime of pointing and yelling in Magnatrude’s ear. His sister still looked frosty, but they started to move toward them. When they had maneuvered their way through the milling crowd, Freda sank into an obliging curtsey, but Magnatrude remained standing tall and proud.

“Allow me to introduce my wife, Baroness Kentigern,” he said pointedly. “My sister, the honorable Magnatrude Bartree, and my cousin, Mistress Fredagunde Bartree.” The significance of his words was not lost on Magnatrude who flushed and dropped into a stiff curtsey.

His wife curtseyed also, and he was pleased to see it was not obsequiously low but merely a good, plain curtsey. “I am very happy to meet you both,” she said warmly. “I cannot tell you how pleased I was when I heard that my husband had sent for you to attend our wedding.” Her bright eyes sent him a quick, brimming look when she said the words ‘my husband’ which gave him pause. If he didn’t know any better, he would almost think she took pleasure in them! “We go now to my father’s house for the wedding feast,” she explained. “Where you will be made very welcome.”

“How very kind,” Freda murmured. Magnatrude inclined her head, then jumped almost out of her skin when someone close by threw back his head and started gustily singing a ballad.

“I think that is our signal to start making our way toward my father’s,” the bride said excitedly. “We must follow that man in the red and yellow costume who is carrying the decorated pole.” She pointed at an extraordinary figure in long scalloped sleeves who was carrying a beribboned staff decorated with bells, who had started marching forward in a high-stepped manner.

Konrad shrugged and they started forward, and Magnatrude and Freda fell in behind them. A good deal of the assembled company was now singing and strumming or plucking away on some instrument or other.

“It feels like quite a procession, does it not?” his new wife chirruped away beside him. “What a merry company we shall be!” The bustling townsfolk stopped whatever they were doing that morn and stared as they passed them. A rag-taggle crowd of children and beggars started to follow along behind.

People crowded into the windows and balconies above to watch as they walked by, and Konrad realized a good number he had taken for Ankatel’s guests must have been hired entertainers. Some were even walking on their hands and turning somersaults alongside them. His wife waved and smiled and showed every enjoyment of being part of the spectacle.

It took a good quarter of an hour to reach the street where the Ankatel’s large black and white timbered townhouse resided. Though his bride still stepped lightly and quickly beside him, Konrad noticed that Magnatrude and Freda were looking rather harried by this point, more from the bustle and hubbub than the exercise.